As placards and marches have done no good, a group of women in the town of Barbacoas (Nariño) have decided to run a protest they have called "Crossed Legs Strike" to change the attitude of indifference of the town's men about the state of the only road that connects them to the rest of Colombia

The protest, that started Wednesday, consists in not having sexual relations with their husbands or permanent partners in this locality in the coast of Nariño province, where the population lives via mining, fishery and agriculture.

Maribel Silva, a judge in Barbacoas and promoter of the protest, said, "We feel forced to call to attention to the region's men the general situation of submission that they have assumed in Barbacoas, and also to protest to the government for better attention for the difficult social situation in which we live".

She said that the abstinence from sex is looking to force their men to speak out and define a limit date for the start of paving works for the section of the road between Junín and Barbacoas.

This road has taken many lives. We have been witness over the years to the enormous needs that our municipality has and the grave lack of development where we live", Silva said.

The National Institute of Roads (Invías) last year authorized the work to the Nº 3 Batallion of Engineers, to whom they gave a limit date of July 1st 2011 to start the work, but the protesters say that in the last meeting they said they were waiting to receive orders, that tenders had to be opened and studies done. "Therefore we know that it's not going to happen because the machinery or the workforce hasn't even arrived yet," added Silva.

According to Colombia Quiñónez, one of the women leading the protest, "We cannot say until when the women of Barbacoas will stay with their legs crossed, but we will do so until we are given a guarantee that the work will happen."

And the judge added that the town's men have already adopted a different attitude and now say that "a hunger strike is preferable to a sex strike."

6/24/11

UPDATE 3-Peru protests turn deadly as govt halts mine project

....that will be backed up by the official announcement in Peru's lawmaking gazette El Peruano tomorrow morning, let's just check back at the brief note in IKN11 last Sunday for subscribers:

Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v): Still watching
No buy decision made on Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v) as yet, basically because I think the market is still buying into the company story that Santa Ana has a decent chance of making it into operation. It hasn’t. So once the false optimism wears off, I’m expecting BCM.v to give me a better entry point than anything seen last week, preferably sub $5.

This was a brief note, but part of an ongoing series on BCM.v at Santa Ana. The call has always been that the project was in serious trouble, by the way. We also forecast bloodshed and loss of lives, also sadly realized today with four deaths as anti-mining protesters in the Puno region tried to take over the local airport at Juliaca.

UPDATE: Local news reports several vehicles on fire at the airport, thick smoke blanketing the area and now deaths are up to five make that six.

In this linked post on Monday, IKN alerted you the the Allied American Steel (AAST.ob) bullshit criminal scam run by the worst sort of scumballs (yeah, even worse than Wistar Holt, who's only trying to rip off goldbugs and therefore has mitigation on his side). So that was Monday and today is Friday so let's check in on the price chart development:

Oh looky, 50% down in one trading week. We'll leave the in-depth comment to Owly on this one, methinks:

And so just a few minutes ago, Golden Minerals (AUMN) and ECU Silver (ECU.to) announced they were merging. Here's the NR and the key phrase here is "a merger of equals". Gotta agree with that, at least on a managerial basis, as both companies are pisspoor mining operators as the Apex Silver debacle shows on one side and the serial losses of ECU.to show on the other. Also, the way overinflated top managers' salaries at both companies are equally shareholder unfriendly.

Both stocks are trading significantly lower on the news, too. The likely explanation for this is 1) idiot rahrah brigade at ECU.to are looking at AUMN and thinking they're getting diluted and 2) the slightly more sophisticated AUMN fans knowing full well they're getting led up the garden path on this one. DYODD.

UPDATE: More on "a merger of equals":

Yup, equally crappy share price performance this year. This deal makes more sense by the minute.

I'm sticking to my theory that, unlike market or currency driven whizzos like copper, silver, gold or what have you, the market for zinc is a fair reflection of the real state of the world economy and its recovery since late'08.

6/23/11

So you have a protest in Huancayo in provincial Peru, with people demanding that once and for all the government stops lying to them and makes good on its promise to equip the city with a university.

Nobody listens

So the people protest once again, march through the streets pacifically, do all the demonstration type things.

Nobody listens

So the students demanding a place to educate themselves without travelling oodles of kilometres block a road yesterday morning. And HOORAY! finally somebody listens. The people that finally pay attention are the police who beat the shit out of them, three people are left dead and if journalists dare to photograph them or take video evidence of a dozen police officers battering a single student with their batons the cameras are stolen from them and the reporter videoing the scene is whacked about the head and body too.

Welcome to the bit of Peru that doesn't involve tours of Machu Picchu, five star hotels and buffet breakfasts with English speaking guide. Hat tip the evergood Huanca York Times.

For your general edification and entertainment, let's catch up on how the Marin Katusa / Casey Research led scam pump East West Resources (EW.v) has been doing. We've featured it on a number of occasions at this humble corner of cyberspace (here and here tend to be ongoing popular posts) but today we're homing in on Executive Chairman David Sidoo's contribution to the cause...which so far has basically been throwing his own money down the Katusa Krush™ black hole:

(click to enlarge with sharper focus too)

It's incredible to think that installing afailed restauranteuras head guy of an Oil & Gas junior hasn't paid off so far...can't think why that should be. Hey David, you know this old joke?

Completion of the prefeasibility study is expected by the end of July 2011 and AMEC Americas Limited, an independent supplier of engineering and project management services, is concurrently preparing a National Instrument 43-101 compliant technical report. Upon receipt of the technical report, NovaGold will announce the results and file it on SEDAR and EDGAR within 45 days of the announcement.

The partners have approved a $30.5-million budget to carry out further work on the Project during the remainder of 2011. Planned work includes infill drilling to convert inferred mineral resources to measured and indicated categories, geotechnical drilling on the tunnel alignment and geotechnical drilling to confirm open pit slopes in areas targeted for conversion of inferred mineral resources. GCMC will also complete further environmental and engineering work in preparation for feasibility level studies.

"Completion of the prefeasibility study will be an important milestone as we work with Teck to optimize the Galore Creek project," said Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, President and CEO of NovaGold. "Galore Creek is one of the most significant copper-gold projects in the world. Its timely development is important for all stakeholders, including Federal and Provincial governments as well as First Nation communities of northwestern British Columbia."

During the second quarter of 2011, Teck completed its funding requirements of $373 million to earn its 50% interest in GCMC. The Project will move forward with Teck and NovaGold equally funding further Project development.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - 06/23/11) - We cool dudes at NadaGold Resources Inc. (TSX:NG - News)(AMEX:NG - News) want to remind you all about what's happening at Galore Creek, because since the Kaplan guys sold oodles of shares earlier this year the stock is down about $5 to $9. So anyway, remember Galore Creek? Yeah that's right, the project we brought on board back in 2003 is now aggressively moving to a pre-feas stage! Wowsers, nobody can ever accuse us of dragging our heels, can they? Well in fact that's a bit wrong, because back in 2006 we already had a Full Bankable Feasibility Study done on Galore Creek that put the capex at U$1.8Bn....but then things got a bit smelly and we found out that the real cost of capex would be up to U$5Bn (yeah, five billion dollars) and so our JV partner Teck told us where we could stick our plans. So anyway, here we are nearly four freakin' years later and the new SparklySpangly Pre-Feas is nearly ready and we sure hope that you fall for our smoke'n'mirror exercise one more time, because so far you New York based sheep have been great to us.

Oh, and by the way, Teck has fulfilled its payment obligations on the JV now and so from today there's no more free ride on Galore Creek and we're going to have to burn your money on this dog that will never be a mine, new power line through the joint or not.

Love and Kisses, Rick!

UPDATE: Message to Ian Bezek: "Widely respected?" You gotta be kidding dude...that's the last thing we'd want to be known as round these parts.

Oh well, at least the short-term market spin and opportunism is blindly obvious, we can see it for what it is and therefore it's unlikely to last. DYODD dude, and don't worry too much about fliptrading if you're an investor.

PS: I've already been quizzed twice, so let's put the info here. HDP is a Spanish acronym. H = hijo, D = of and P= an age-old service industry profession proffered to the world mainly by women.

...the year to date performance of the 52 licensed Mutual Funds in Peru:

click to enlarge and see the names better

The ones on the left with the tiny amount of green tend to be the passive type or money market funds. Meanwhile, anything with an exposure to Peru's stock market is getting a nasty case of capitalist reality. For context, Peru's BVL bourse is the world 4th worst performer this year, or so says the article here in Gestion that has all the above data.

6/22/11

Today sees the big anti-drug meeting in Guatemala called "The International Conference for Strategic Security Support in Central America" (Conferencia Internacional de Apoyo a la Estrategia de Seguridad en Centroamérica) which includes all the local bigwigs of all countries, Presidents, Defence and Interior Ministers etc etc. When it was President Santos's turn to speak in the day's keynote address, he said this (translated):

"Their [the narcotraffickers] capacity for corruption goes far beyond what we can imagine. I assure you, and forgive me for being so frank, that here in this meeting there are many people on the narcotraffickers' payrolls and who are informing the narcos what's happening here in real time."

Damn, I like it when politicos drop the bullshit and tell it how it is.

Press Release

Release Date: June 22, 2011

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April indicates that the economic recovery is continuing at a moderate pace, though somewhat more slowly than the Committee had expected. Also, recent labor market indicators have been weaker than anticipated. The slower pace of the recovery reflects in part factors that are likely to be temporary, including the damping effect of higher food and energy prices on consumer purchasing power and spending as well as supply chain disruptions associated with the tragic events in Japan. Household spending and business investment in equipment and software continue to expand. However, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector continues to be depressed. Inflation has picked up in recent months, mainly reflecting higher prices for some commodities and imported goods, as well as the recent supply chain disruptions. However, longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The unemployment rate remains elevated; however, the Committee expects the pace of recovery to pick up over coming quarters and the unemployment rate to resume its gradual decline toward levels that the Committee judges to be consistent with its dual mandate. Inflation has moved up recently, but the Committee anticipates that inflation will subside to levels at or below those consistent with the Committee's dual mandate as the effects of past energy and other commodity price increases dissipate. However, the Committee will continue to pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations.

To promote the ongoing economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent. The Committee continues to anticipate that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee will complete its purchases of $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of this month and will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate.

The Committee will monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will act as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability.

It's really difficult to think about the markets this week. This mail, received yesterday morning from the godfather of my eldest kid, just about sums things up. It's being left in Spanish because a translation does it no justice. By the way, if you're wondering what the devil this post is about then don't worry about it because it's not going to affect your life. This time it's personal.

At 3pm today Lima time Weds June 22nd (that's 4pm EST for people living in the hah-you-think-you're-developed world), Peru's Mining Minister Fernando Gala is due to make a decision on the future of Bear Creek Mining's (BCM.v) Santa Ana project.

I betcha he pulls the plug. More details here for those of you versed in the tongue of Cervantes. And I actually owned and played this record once upon a time, so it was a thrill in itself to find it just now on Youtube.

A great postby leading Colombia expert Adam Isaacson over at 'Just the Facts' today, which gives an overview of the far right wing paramilitary organizations operating in the country at present. As well as the map you see above, you get a rundown of the five main groups and information on each one under headings "Territory", "Membership", "Leadership", "Lineage", Notable Connections" and "Recent News". Great stuff indeed and your humble scribe urges you to click through and read the whole piece, but here's the intro blurb to get you in the mood:

Here is an overview of the principal "emerging criminal groups" in Colombia. The Colombian government refers to them as "Bacrim" (Bandas Criminales), and along with leftist guerrillas they are among the country's principal narcotraffickers. These groups are often called "new paramilitaries" because most are led by former mid-level commanders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the paramilitary umbrella organization that underwent a formal demobilization in 2006.

And the moment it ended for the bigoted mediamogul dumbasses that think they run Peru is when he said these words (translated from the direct quote here) to Bolivia's President Evo Morales during his visit to Bolivia today:

"I dream of the reunification of Peru and Bolivia. I dream that one day the frontier disappears and we go back to being one nation, a single country."

Hah! I can just imagine the inherently racist Lima hoi-polloi wondering if they'll really have to share their wealth with the small brown people....this one is now over. He also dared to call Evo "compatriota", which is best translated as the slightly clumsy "fellow countryman" to get the feeling right but will likely be transformed into 'comrade' once the spindoctors you tend to read and believe have done their bit.

Too many sillypeople worrying about this stock recently. It's going higher from here too, as long as 5X earnings are aren't (oops, just spotted the typo 3 hrs later) the new normal for a PM miner. DYODD, dude.

Why so? Because Bill Murphy of GATA is a liar about ECU Silver (ECU.to) and doesn't have the first clue about what he's pumping to you. And that arrogant bully known to an undeserving world as Wistar Holt is so close to outright fraud in his non-stop pumping of ECU.to that you can hardly slide a sheet of paper between the gap.

But the numbers? They don't lie.

And before the ranks of Kool-Aid drinkers who actually fall for this scam start writing in, do us all a favour and don't bother until you can actually understand what the numerical information held in those charts actually signifies, because life is too short to read your banalities otherwise. Oh, and another number for you is $455,702, the all-cash salary of head scamster Michel Roy in 2010. He's laughing at you, sheep.

By the way, I just love how ECU.to has "lost" over $10m in asset value due to the new IFRS accounting rules but just can't be bothered to tell you about it...or why. Over $300m market cap for a company that generates revenues of $5m a qtr, pays all its excess to the loan runners and can't return a net profit to save its sorry ass, even in the current price levels for silver and gold? Gimme a freakin' break, dumbasses. DYODD, dude.

A simple reminder to all you neurotics out there. FerCryinOutLoud, at least choose something to worry about that allows the normal, well-adjusted people to retain a modicum of respect for y'all. Worrying about the prospects of the gold price is like worrying about the moon and whether it's an exact sphere.

Sino-Forest has a 16-year track record of operations, during which time it repeatedly completed debt and equity offerings without once being the subject of legal concern. The due-diligence required in these fund-raising activities is extremely strict and comprehensive, and every offering requires an army of accountants, underwriters, consultants and lawyers. The companies that have been coming under fire recently in China don’t have the history of operations and haven’t undergone nearly the amount of rigorous due-diligence that Sino has.

(June 2: Muddy Waters releases its report.)

June 6:

Based on our review and discussions with management regarding the company’s assets and operations over the past several years, to the best of our knowledge we believe that the allegations cited in the short-sellers “research report” are false and without merit.Sino-Forest has established an independent committee to deal with the accusations accordingly. Although we expect that the special committee’s conclusions will support Company management fully, we are expecting further clarification on this process and hope that it comes quickly.

June 7:

“We are going to provide you with some information on why Muddy Waters research is a pile of crap”

June 20:

We are suspending coverage on Sino-Forest (TRE-T), effective immediately. Effective immediately our past ratings, target prices, valuations and estimates should no longer be relied upon. Until such time as the Company has made public the findings of the Board appointed Independent Committee together with the assistance of its external advisors including legal council Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and we have had time to review and analyze these findings we are not in a position to comment on or otherwise speculate on matters as they relate to the business practice or valuation of Sino-Forest.

DYODD....and Lordy Lord, I aint kidding you around, dudettes and dudes. As for you overpaid dumbasses in suits lounging around in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, you gotta do a bit of DD as well methinks.

Here's the latest in a long line of scams that have the scamster John Myers at the centre of the promo. Allied American Steel (AAST.ob) is the name and the modus operandi being used to pump this worthless hulk of crap is uncannily similar to the way John Myers pumped American Power (AMPW.ob) back in January. Then it was coal that Rio Tinto was going to buy, now with AAST.ob it's iron ore that BHP is going to buy.

It's a complete and utter scam, ladies and gentlemen, and as AAST.ob is currently trading at $1.70 a share, there's an awful lot of room for shorters to move in and make a pile on the back of any idiots that decide to buy into this bullshit. I'd catalog it all, but fortunately Len Boselovic of Pittsburg's Post-Gazette has already done a great job of exposing the main points of the scam in his report out yesterday Sunday. Entitled "Reports of takeovers may be greatly exaggerated", it's a very good report and recommended reading. Go now.

However, this morning we had a further development at AAST.ob that's worthy of special note, because Allied American Steel has decided to employ a corrupt and criminal geologist as its expert in all matters mineral. Here's the link to this morning's NRthat talks in glowing terms about the appointment of Richard Tschauder as Senior Geologist and here's a few excerpts from the purple prose:

Allied American Steel Corp is pleased to announce the appointment of Senior Geologist, Richard Tschauder, to the Company's management team.

Mr. Tschauder is a senior geologist with over thirty years of experience in the mineral exploration and mining industry. Since 1996, he has drawn on that experience while acting as an independent consultant, concentrating on the identification and exploration of mining projects....

For 15 years, Rick was chief geologist for Hecla Mining Company...

Rick has over 25 publications in mining and economic geology...

His technical and field work experience will prove vital to Allied American...

"Rick is the perfect addition to our management team at this point of our development," commented Jes Black, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of Allied American....

All very nice I'm sure, but what AAST.ob misses out about Richard Tschauder is that he doesn't have 25 publications about geology, but at least 26. That's because there's this little publication on the dude that comes from class action and documents his deep involvement in a previous criminal scam. Here we go with the relevant passages, 7 and 8, ofthe full Class Action complaint linked here and your humble scribe highlights the moneylines:

7. Contrary to their pubic representations, the Atlas Defendants knew that the halloysite at the Dragon Mine was not of the quality represented. Prior to making these public representations, Atlas was aware of reputable reports regarding the quality of halloysite at the Dragon Mine, which reports noted significant impurities (including alunite and iron minerals) and contaminants in the Dragon Mine that would prevent the halloysite from being used in high-end production. To perpetrate fraud on its shareholders, Atlas retained Richard Tschauder to publish findings contrary to these reports. Mr. Tschauder’s findings were false and were tainted with conflicts as he was not independent and had a financial stake in providing misleading information concerning the Dragon Mine’s prospects.

8. While touting the quality and quantity of the halloysite purportedly in its possession based on the conflict-tainted findings of Tschauder, Atlas fraudulently represented to the market that it was already selling halloysite to customers and had bright prospects of selling even more halloysite. In a January 19, 2005 press release, Atlas first claimed to have sold halloysite to a customer, NaturalNano, Inc. This purported sale never occurred and Atlas’ public representations were the result of collusion between Atlas and NaturalNano. Specifically, for no valid business purpose other than NaturalNano’s cooperation in creating the appearance that NaturalNano was purchasing halloysite from Atlas, and for no consideration, Atlas issued warrants to NaturalNano to acquire 750,000 shares of Atlas stock at $0.40 a share. As of August 9, 2006, those warrants were sold for $562,500 yielding to NaturalNano stockholders net cash proceeds after legal fees of $506,250.00, at the expense of Atlas shareholders. Tschauder, who authored the false reports for Atlas, was a shareholder of NaturalNano.

In other words, professional scam runner, scumball and general piece of shit Richard Tschauder was hired by another scam runner, paid off with shares and then lied about the geological attributes of the deposit in order to push the share price up and cash in. That's the type of geologist this pump and dump scam run by another total shit bag called Jes Black, chairman of AAST.ob, thinks is "perfect" to employ, ladies and gentlemen readers of this humble corner of cyberspace. DYODD.

Tumeremo: The present and future of families in the municipalities of Roscio, El Callao and Sifontes that depend on jobs connected to companies associated with the Rusoro Mining consortium are in doubt.

According to José Manuel Rivas, on-site security supervisor for the Rusoro group, accompanied by security officer Miguel Pérez and contractor Pedro Romero, the mining operations of the consortium may close down operations on August 1st because since March the company has not received any authorization to sell gold overseas, violating the resolution Nº 10-07-01 emitted August 11th 2010. The men say that a functionary of the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) named Elí Sánchez told the company that while he was in office at the BCV no more overseas gold sales would be permitted.

Also, the company employees explained that the sale of gold to international markets is vital in order to acquire and renew the equipment used in the gold's extraction, as well as being the resources needed to invest in diverse social projects.

6/19/11

IKN111 has just been sent to subscribers. Because it has a bunch of photos it's larger Mb-wise than the usual edition and one or two mailboxes out there have bounced it back (there's one that Daemon says is over quota, too). If you haven't received yours yet that's probably why, so send me a mail.

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The information and opinions contained within this site reflect the personal views of Inca Kola News and therefore all material within should not be construed as accurate or reliable or be utilized as advice for investment or business purposes. Independent due diligence and discussions with ones own investment and business advisors is strongly recommended. Accordingly, nothing on this site should be construed as offering a guarantee of the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein, as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security or as an endorsement of any product or service. All opinions and estimates included on this site are subject to change without notice. All content may be reproduced under fair use doctrine providing proper credit and a return link is made to this site.